News From NPR March 31, 2010

We've just learned that NPR has won TWO Peabody Awards – one for Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson's coverage of Afghanistan and the other to NPR.org for overall excellence. In addition, Diane Rehm has won a personal Peabody Award honoring her career on WAMU and NPR creating a show deemed "the gold standard for civil, civic discourse"; and "Hard Times" from Oregon Public Broadcasting has won with the judges noting, "The Main Street repercussions of Wall Street's reckless ways were nowhere in the media more humanly and thoughtfully documented than in this series of radio reports."

In announcing Soraya's award today, the Peabody committee said: "No reporter in any medium gives us a better sense of the variety of life inside Afghanistan than the multi-lingual chief of NPR's Kabul bureau." Truer words were ever uttered. In a year of continuing tumult in Afghanistan, Soraya's vivid storytelling on NPR has spotlighted issues ranging from threats to Afghan women's political ambitions, to the deadly attacks, to the impact of everyday issues such as problems with the Afghan electrical grid. We're thrilled that Soraya's compelling, revealing, and brave work has been recognized.

The NPR.org award is simply, well, breathtaking. It's confirmation of NPR's evolution on digital platforms and our efforts to make public radio online live up to the standards already set on the air. As a treasure-trove of audio, expanded online coverage, stunning visuals, strong web writing, snark-free blogging, engaging music discovery, and more – NPR.org isn't old media OR new media. It's the synthesis of both, the product of a now multimedia organization.

Bravo to all!

-Vivian

Vivian Schiller
President & CEO
National Public Radio
635 Massachusetts Ave. NW
Washington DC 20001-3735
(202) 513-2005
vschiller@npr.org


Visit the official Peabody website